First I’ll give you brief summary of the story in my own words. In the near future, where the internet has manifested itself into one coherent program named the World of Oz. World of Oz is a virtual world where users can create an avatar and do miscellaneous activities such as shopping and customizing (a bit like 2nd Life). Except that "real world companies and governments" have also based themselves in the World of Oz so banks, telephone and mobile companies, national railway systems, hospitals with access medical history etc. can easily be accessed by the user. Simply put, it is a vast, global, centralized medium of communication and the user's actions in the World of Oz can potentially have real world consequences. The story revolves around a humble maths genius named Kenji and a typical beautiful school girl named Natsuki. Natsuki asks Kenji to pretend to be her boyfriend while they visit her dying grandmother in the country. The story begins to unfold from here as Natsuki's cousins and family are introduced revealing dozens of varied characters and personalities which adds a great flavor to the story. Anyway, the first night at natsuki’s grandmother’s house, Kenji receives a text littered with random numbers on his phone via the World of Oz from an anonymous user. He solves the problem and sends off the results. Unbeknownst to him, the code was to hack and get pass Oz’s intricate security system. I’ll stop there. But you can imagine what happens next... Right? The anonymous user wreaks havoc and so on. The story however is much more complex than that. Personally, that was why I enjoyed it so much.
The story’s complexity never ever over reached itself however it just kept on growing and growing in “epicness”. Here, I’d like to compare the style with Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, not with its manliness, mecha or a particular large breast character with a humungous sniper. But with how the plot in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was constantly developing, one plot after another followed by a solution and a climax that was much bigger and interesting than the previous ones and how they struggled to fight on even if struggling meant moving just an inch and how they all collaborated together to fight unanimously against one cause giving us, the audience, a warm glow of pride inside. That’s how a real story reaches epic proportions which this movie successfully does within a mere 1 hour and 54 minutes.
I’m going to merge the art an sound paragraph together because though I’ve watched plenty of animes, I don’t think I’m particularly justified to talk about such thing. Let’s just say the art was simple yet elegant (oh so cliché), but yes, it served well for its purpose because it never got “in your face”. Plus its simplicity emphasized particular moments of cuteness that make you unable to contain your adoration inside causing you to leak the sound “hhnnnnggghhhh!” from your appropriate orifices. And as far as I can tell the animation was a smooth as silk. The sound was simply amazing, it was almost completely dialogue and voice driven, and occasionally a random soundtrack would pop up but not noticeably whilst adding nicely to the ambience. The voice acting was lovely… You know when a particular voice just fits a particular character? Yeah, that was the case for all the characters here. So no complaints in that department.
This perfectly leads me on to characters, there were so many characters and you probably would not be able to remember a single supporting character (i.e. the cousins) names by the end of the show. But you’d sure as hell be able to recognize them. Each character had their own unique personality and little knick-knacks. Their interaction was absolutely hilarious and also kept the plot flowing efficiently.
Of course, like most stories, there is a theme of romance which threads the whole story and ties a complete knot around it. It was perfect for me as it was not overdone in any sense. To enjoy an anime like this though, you have to shake yourself loose and just let yourself immerse in the story because it’s not incredibly realistic and of course like all anime it’s extremely exaggerated! But hey! It’s enjoyable and I would have given it 20 out of 10 for enjoyment if I could.
So what's the verdict? This is not another Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo (though similar animation style) and should be judged differently. Both were amazing in their own right. I realize this review has been incredibly biased and lacks criticism. I do have some tiny, tiny criticisms but they were miniscule and it did not affect my enjoyment one little bit. I really hope you do go watch and enjoy this movie as much as I did!
